Getting into Upton Court Grammar School
The Slough Consortium 11+, one GL test shared by the four Slough grammar schools: what it involves and what to do next, for entry in September 2027.
Every fact on this page is checked against the school’s published admissions information, and nothing is guessed. · View sources · Report an error
Registration for the September 2026 test closed on 5 June 2026. 2 weeks to test day.
What to do and when
Sitting the year after (2028 entry)? These are 2027-entry dates, and yours are not published yet: there is nothing you need to do this far out. Sign up for reminders and tick the 2028-entry box, and we’ll email only when your cycle’s dates are out and it is actually time to act.
5 dates as a calendar file, for Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. Share the link with anyone who needs them.
Life’s busy, so we’ll email you a nudge before each Upton Court Grammar deadline above. Nothing else: no newsletter, no marketing, and the reminders stop for good after National Offer Day (1 Mar 2027) unless you sign up again for another school.
The test, in one look
Upton Court Grammar sits the Slough Consortium, set by GL Assessment.
GL Assessment sets the 11+ for most grammar schools in England, including this one. Papers are multiple-choice, and scores are age-standardised: children born at different points in the school year are marked against slightly different scales, so a summer-born child isn’t disadvantaged. Because GL is the most widely used format, familiarisation materials and practice papers in the same style are easy to come by.
Because GL is multiple-choice and age-standardised, the two things that move a score are accuracy under time pressure and covering every question type rather than the comfortable ones. PlusProgress practice is adaptive across English, Maths, Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning, so it keeps finding the types your child is weakest on instead of rewarding what they already do well, and mock papers follow the format this school sets. Progress is reported as a standardised age score, the same scale the school will use.
The score, honestly
111 is the number every Slough grammar publishes, and it is a gate rather than a target. Upton Court has no catchment: after looked-after children, up to 20 Pupil Premium places, staff children and the two feeder schools, up to 120 places go purely in rank order of test score. Whatever remains of the 165 goes by distance, nearest first. So a strong mark genuinely counts here, and proximity decides the tail.
How places are decided
165 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Eligibility score 111 first, then EHCP. Then: looked-after and previously looked-after children; up to 20 places for children eligible for Pupil Premium now or within the previous six years; children of Pioneer Educational Trust staff of 2 years or more; children at Foxborough Primary or Trevelyan Middle as designated feeder schools; up to 120 places in rank order of test performance; then the remaining places by proximity to the school. Ties are settled by distance, then by lot.
What an EHCP is: an Education, Health and Care Plan, a legal document from your council for a child with special educational needs. Where a plan names a school, that school has to offer a place, so those places are taken out of the number above before anyone else is ranked. It is not a route most families can apply through.
Taken from the school’s own determined admission arrangements. The full document is linked under sources.
How many children actually sit
Schools and councils publish some of this and not all of it. The numbers below came from Freedom of Information requests, which anyone can make, and each one links to the reply it came from.
Across the whole area, 4,970 children sat the Slough consortium test for 2025 entry. They were not all applying here: that number covers every school that shares the test. Source
How pupils here do at GCSE
This is based on how pupils at this school go on to perform in their GCSEs, five years after the 11+. Attainment 8 is their average result across eight subjects. Read it as a description of outcomes rather than of teaching: a selective school admits children who were already scoring well at ten, so a high position here reflects who the school takes in as much as what it does with them.
Scores from Compare school and college performance data in England, Department for Education, 2024/25, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The Department publishes the scores and does not publish a ranking: the position above is ours, calculated over state-funded schools with a published score. See the full table.
One sitting, 4 schools
The same test also covers these schools:
Common questions
No, and this catches families out every year. Registration only asks for a seat in the test. You still have to name the schools you want on your council application form by 31 October 2026, in your genuine order of preference.
111 makes your child eligible for consideration at any of the four schools. It does not win a place. Each school then applies its own criteria, and at three of the four your address does much of the deciding, so treat 111 as the door rather than the destination.
No. One sitting at one of the four schools counts for all of them (Saturday 19 September 2026 for 2027 entry).
Two papers of roughly an hour each, with a mix of Verbal, Numerical and Non-Verbal questions rather than one subject per paper. GL Assessment marks them and standardises the scores, so age is taken into account. Some familiarisation material from the test provider is published on the consortium schools’ websites.
Up to 25% extra per paper may be granted for recognised special educational needs. It has to be requested during registration with professionally supported evidence, and the consortium sets an evidence deadline a week after registration closes (12 June for 2027 entry).
Mid-October, through the consortium portal, ahead of the 31 October council deadline. Selective schools have to tell parents the outcome before that deadline, which is why the whole timetable runs the way it does.
Two weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.
PlusProgress mocks return a standardised score, the same kind of number the consortium reports, so you can see where they stand against that 111 well before September.